


Like Petals In A Storm

by Hum My Name (My_Kind_of_Crazy)



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bad Parenting, Canon Related, Friendship, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Jaskier | Dandelion Needs a Hug, Locked In, Okay I would say angst with a happy ending but i did a thing i'm not proud of at the end, Past Relationship(s), Running Away, Sad, Sad Jaskier | Dandelion, Sick Character, Some Fluff, Timeline What Timeline, still somewhat a happy ending tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Kind_of_Crazy/pseuds/Hum%20My%20Name
Summary: 5 times Jaskier felt alone + 1 time he didn't<>He shuts his eyes and tries to remember how it had felt for his mother to have placed her hand on his head, for her to have looked at him with gentle concern as she’d sighed.He coughs, hiding the sound in the pillow.Outside, the wind pulls more flower petals away.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion/Other(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 153





	Like Petals In A Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for overuse of the name Julian. Like. Half the fic.
> 
> Also! This is my first Witcher fic so please be kind, haha. I'm just casually dipping into the fic side of the fandom so I'm desperately hoping that any of this is right. If not then... we'll just pretend I strayed far from canon on purpose lol. Let me know what you think!

I.

Julian has always thought of his room as rather small. He’s seen the rooms that other boys have— the rooms with beds big enough to curl up under, rooms with space for more than the books and fancy clothes his parents pack in here— and has always thought that his own doesn’t quite compare. Oh, sure, he knows he’s lucky— lucky to have his own room, at all. A room that comes with the title he’ll grow into, the role he’ll play, the rank he’ll fill once he’s old enough to understand just what all that means. But Julian’s always felt a bit too big for the space he’s given and, so, he’s always thought of this drab place as small.

It never occurred to him that there may come a time when he considers it too big— that there may be a time when, for once, he’s the one feeling little.

For once, his bed seeks to drown him, his covers like weights upon his aching legs, his pillows sinking beneath his head— and his head, gods, his head. The way his brains feel fit to burst, a pressure at his skull that yearns for more space, for more than this little child’s body. He’d been bouncing on this bed just the other day, laughing at the shade of red his mother had turned; now, though, he stretches his hands out to the side, feeling for the ends of the mattress. All he finds is more fabric— more blankets and pillows and heat, damned heat.

His mother had called it a cold of some sort, tutting with her hand at his head late last night.

_ “I’d warned you not to play in the rain,”  _ she’d said, lips pursed in that way they always were when she was right.  _ “Now you’ll have to stay in. And you best not be a nuisance about it.” _

Julian had promised everything she’d asked. Yes to the silence and the tonics and the too-hot soup she poured through his lips. Yes to the shut windows and shut doors and shadowed room. Anything to make the weight upon his body lift; anything to let him wake up in time to play in the garden again.

Thunder groans across the sky outside, the same thunder that had pressed against his back yesterday morning as he leaned over pretty flowers with names he didn’t know, covering them with his hands so the wind couldn’t tear them away.

_ “It’s alright,”  _ he’d said as a dainty yellow flower lost two more petals.  _ “I’ll help them to plant more of you _ .”

One more flower for each petal lost. It’d seemed like a good trade.

Well, up until the part where he woke in the middle of the night with a cough that sounded like the same storm that continues to rage outside.

It’s an effort to turn his head and squint at the wilted shapes and shadows on the desk across the room— the too large room, the expanding room, the room that seems so big without his voice or smile or friends. Four yellow petals, two red, one of a strange blue-purple-green shade. Seven flowers to plant. 

He drops his head back onto the pillow with an exaggerated groan— a groan that, of course, is only half of what it could be, his throat too ragged from coughs and sneezes to do much more than squeak. It hurts for a moment, and he finds himself wondering whether his mother will come back with more of that soup. It had been hot and bland but, somehow, it had helped.

Julian sniffles into the dark, raising an arm to wipe his nose and swallowing down another round of coughs as he does so. If he were feeling even a fraction better, he’d think of calling out for someone to bring him something to drink— something to ease the thickness of his throat, the weariness of his voice. And, if he were feeling worse, he’d call for his mother herself. 

“Mother?” He attempts after a desperate moment, a weak whisper that barely lasts longer than a candle in a storm. No one comes. Of course, no one comes. People don’t often notice him unless he’s bouncing off the walls or singing songs other children have taught him.

Julian slowly turns to his side, hiding his face in the pillow before he can be tempted to try calling out again. Perhaps it’s fever or perhaps it’s frustration, but something cold and uncomfortable fills his chest and skin as he thinks of how his mother had locked the door upon leaving last time.

_ “We may have guests,”  _ she’d said as she pocketed the key.  _ “Can’t have you wandering around and getting them ill _ .”

If his mother could see him now, face screwed up and hands forming weak fists, she’d probably warn him about throwing another tantrum. 

He sighs, and that sigh becomes a cough— a cough into a coughing fit, a coughing fit into a whimper, a whimper into a choked off sob.

“She forgot about me,” Julian says, looking at the strip of light beneath his bedroom door. It’d be dinner time now, and he can just about picture his mother fussing over whatever lord or lady has graced them with their presence, her cheeks rosy and pink as her son suffocates on his own breath a handful of rooms away.

Or, perhaps, he’s simply being overdramatic. It is, after all, nothing but a cold.

Still, Julian kicks his blankets until they’re hanging loosely off the bed. He hits the wall as if punishing it for its neverending appearance in the dark. 

He shuts his eyes and tries to remember how it had felt for his mother to have placed her hand on his head, for her to have looked at him with gentle concern as she’d sighed. 

He coughs, hiding the sound in the pillow. 

Outside, the wind pulls more flower petals away.

II.

It doesn’t matter that it’s merely been an hour since his father left Julian behind a locked door. With his paper and books confiscated, it may as well have been years.

_ “You’ll not be joining us for dinner, tonight,”  _ his father had said, the key pressed tightly to the palm of his hand.  _ “Your mother and I have decided to leave you here to think of how a boy of your standing should act. And don’t think of escaping into your stupid little worlds. Your mother had those taken out this morning.” _

This morning— so they’ve been planning this for a while. Talking about the banquet and the guests and the party like it was something to attend, something to look forward to, all the while knowing that they’d be happily hiding their son away. Have they already concocted what lies to tell the others? Or will it be some unspoken thing, some joke about Julian fucking up again?

Though there’s no one here to see, Julian turns his face away from the door, his heart already iced over with shame.

“Fuck them, anyway,” he mutters to himself, the words sweeter because they’re forbidden. “Like I want to spend an evening with that lot.”

Sitting on the edge of his bed, still dressed in the new silk doublet he had thought he would wear, Julian forces himself to think of nothing but awkward smiles and sweaty handshakes, dancing with too many girls and having too many drinks.

Right. Perhaps it is best he stays up here, away from those who would call him a thoughtless fool.

But, still. The silk is soft against his skin; the chatter and music from below slip viciously through the cracks of his door. If he shuts his eyes, he can nearly taste the wine on his tongue.

He does love dancing— twirling girls to make them smile, telling dirty jokes to make them blush— and he loves the song they’re playing now. He can’t hear whatever bard they’ve hired this time but he knows the tune well enough to hum along, falling flat on the bed with a soft sigh.

If he listens close enough, he can pretend that he’s anywhere but here. Anywhere but this damned room with its tight walls— too small, too big, too familiar to be safe. Anywhere but this home, this family, this land.

Anywhere from a place that looks at him and says  _ Julian _ — because such a name is only ever said with a wrinkle in the corner, a breath smelling sourly of disappointment and resignation.  _ Julian  _ is not a person; it’s just another word for a fool.

The song swells and dips and shifts into something new, into a jig that Julian feels echoing in his bones. It’s one of the empty ones— an orchestra with no words, hollow and meant only to fill the space between equally hollow conversations. Julian frowns but he doesn’t open his eyes. 

One day, maybe, someone will write songs with words that people feel and sing and love. Maybe someone won’t write just for courts and dances and banquets. There are stories out there, damn it, and, maybe, someone will write for those, instead.

Of course— because,  _ of course _ — Julian’s tried to be that someone. Lit his candles late at night, the wax melting like a warning as he spilled ink across the papers meant for studies. Half a dozen notebooks he must have filled.

Notebooks that now are nowhere to be found. Because he was wrong and he was bad and he was such a disappointment and such a typical  _ Julian _ .

And now he’s here, staring at the back of his eyelids like he would when he was young and trying to fall back asleep when the summer storms would wake him at night. He’s here, alone and aching as if the sensation is something new.

He’s here and he’s Julian and he’s wishing he was somewhere else. Or someone else, whichever wish is easier to answer.

He has no reason for the weight that falls upon his chest at the thought— as thick as a pitcher of ale, and twice as hot as the drunken burn— but he doesn’t try to push it away. It’s easier to let it pulse into his breaths, his thoughts, his head. It’s easier to pretend his eyes hurt from how tightly he’s closing them, and that his hands only shake from rage.

Not hurt. Never hurt.

_ “Think of how a boy of your standing should act.” _

He should be stronger than this emotion. He should be angry and bitter and more. Curling his lips at the mere suggestion that he’s wrong for anything— for singing at local taverns, for hiding something as beautiful as music from his family. He should be pounding his fists against the door, demanding to be let out.

Would they love him, then, he wonders? If he adopted his mother’s cool tone, his father’s hardened eyes? If he shut off his heart and treated the world as poorly as they did?

It’s not easy to do those things, though. It’s not easy for him to be so cruel.

A boy of his standing shouldn’t weep quietly over a punishment that doesn’t leave a mark. A boy of his standing shouldn’t be so damned weak.

But a boy like him, a boy like Julian, pretends not to feel the warmth of tears down the side of his face. A boy like him has learned how to hush his own cries.

A boy like him will never be enough. And, so, there’s no use in pretending he can be anything but this. 

Julian presses down into the mattress, sinking into as if it can help him disappear. Footsteps sound outside his door— wayward servants, most likely, taking advantage of the distracted nobles too drunk to notice they’ve been left on their own; the sounds, though, are hidden beneath the fog weaving seamlessly into his mind and lungs. 

It’s hard to notice anything other than the beating of his own heart, nearly a taunt in the way it pounds to the beat of some yet unwritten song.

III.

Julian— but not Julian, not anymore— stops on a wet path in the midst of trees he can’t see through. Clouds collect above the branches and trees, only noticeable from the way they cover the sun and its warmth. Wind pulls none too gently at his clothes, mocking the way he still wears his family’s colors even when out here, lost in the woods in the moments before the rain.

Because it will rain, won’t it? Because life is cruel and unkind and the one thing that would make all this worse— worse than the bitter hurt stirring in his stomach, worse than the namelessness he holds in his empty hands— would be rain.

As if taunting him, the first fat droplet falls flat on his nose.

Julian’s never hated rain, not really; but, then, he’s not really Julian, anymore.

Not much of anything then, is he? Nothing but a boy with a recklessly packed bag slung over his shoulders, stuffed with clothes and books and a map that tore before he could properly understand it. He’s a lanky fool with blurred vision, staring at each tree and cursing them for looking so much the same. 

He spins round, glaring unhelpfully at the now muddied trail behind him. Not so much a trail, though, as it is the place the foliage naturally parts. Nothing artificially made; gods, no. He couldn’t make it so easy for anyone to track him. 

And, so, he turns to his left this time. He’d heard…  _ something  _ growling last time he went right and he’d very much like to avoid whatever makes that sound, please and thank you. He takes a few practice steps in his new direction. And then he stops.

Blast it all! Perhaps he should have stolen a horse. It’d be more likely to get him caught, sure, but at least it’d be something other than his folly to blame for getting lost on his own runaway mission.

Alright, okay. Think. He was sure he’d walked through this part of the woods before, back in the days when his father and his friends tried to teach him hunting and trailing prey, but he’s lost track of how long he’s been walking. The forest, too, feels different than it did any of those other times he warily stepped foot in here. With rain puddles collecting around him, it smells different, too. 

No matter. It’s not like he actually has anywhere specific in mind. He’d just run off into the darkest part of the woods he could find— a decision made on a lark after hearing his parents discuss some marriage of convenience they’d been planning for him. Without him. After everything— the insults, the condescension, the disappointment—, that had truly been the last straw.

Leaving had seemed the only obvious road to take. Now, if only he could find a  _ real  _ road somewhere. Somewhere with strangers traveling from here to anywhere, people with stories and lives and friendship to spare. Somewhere to become the right kind of lost— losing Julian to win someone new, losing everything before this moment. 

He keeps walking, ignoring the bubbling fear in his gut when the trees become thicker. When the promise of a bustling road feels more like a faint dream he was too tired to properly remember.

How long ago did he make a wrong turn? How impossible will it be to fix?

With each splash of rain against his cheeks and hair, panic settles cozily into his chest. It curls around his heart and behind his ribs, a chill that does nothing but spread. The trees seem to close in on him, leaning to whisper their mocking observations to one another.

_ “Look at that one,”  _ they’ll say, like all others who’ve seen Julian stumble his way through life.  _ “He’ll never make it on his own.” _

Perhaps he won’t. But, damn it all, he’s going to try.

Though it’s hard, he tries to breathe easily through his nose, calming himself with deep and steady breaths. He never quite gets enough air into his lungs but it gives him something other than his fears to focus on. Something other than the icy rain, too.

He’s lost. Really, that’s nothing new.

He’s alone. Same conclusion— he’s practiced that since he learned to talk.

But, somehow, these two are worse than any time before. It’s not something that can be solved by his mother’s reluctant forgiveness or his father’s rare kindness. He can’t sit and wait for someone else to unlock the door, so to speak. He has to find the key himself.

Except it’s not a key he can find, is it? It’s one he’ll have to make from twigs and scraps, hands shaking as he fits together messy pieces, shoving it at the lock with every hope it doesn’t break.

Julian pauses and shakes the metaphor out of his head. No use being poetic now.

Still, it’s no great surprise that pretty words still find their way into his throat, this time in the form of a new song he’d heard when he last snuck off to the tavern. The lyrics shake and they sound forced without the aid of an instrument, but he carries on regardless. 

The wind whistles alongside his words. The trees still lean in but, this time, it’s to hear his song.

It’s still cold and he’s still scared, but his voice keeps him company. He makes up lyrics for the places where he’s forgotten them or deemed them wrong for the melody they’re trying to fit. 

His shoulders tense as dusk turns to night, as grey clouds become black. His breath catches when lightning strikes in the distance. His heart nearly fails when some poor unknown creature scampers away from where he treads.

And his songs continue to breathe, never once faltering as the forest extends endlessly into the dark.

IV.

“I saw the bastard running down the streets! If someone doesn’t bring the coward to me now, there’ll be hell to pay.”

Bastard. Coward. It’s almost humorous how changing his name has done so little to change the other things people call him.

Or, he supposes, it would be humorous if this one particular moment wasn’t being led by someone with a sharp sword out to kill him.

“Right, good,” he mutters to himself, his chest and throat sore from how roughly his breath is leaving his lungs. A sudden run out of his inn and into the streets after midnight wasn’t how he’d planned on spending his evening, but the nobleman and his guards had made it rather difficult to stick to his initial idea of sleeping. “Running’s good for the heart, at least.”

Not that his heart needs anymore work on it when his running’s usually something aimless, something senseless and uncontrolled. 

No, this time, he has a place to run to. He has a someone waiting for him.

“Catherine,” he breathes in relief as he shoves his way into the stables of another inn on the other side of town— the inn he’d been meeting her at each night for the past two weeks, bringing flowers and his lute and words to make her blush. Catherine, a noblewoman with blonde braids and a steady gaze, frowns prettily as he stumbles towards her. “Catherine, thank the  _ gods,  _ I—”

“Jaskier?” 

Oh, and there it is. That name he plucked from the air while half-asleep and starving in some shady tavern. It had sounded like a joke when he’d said it— but then it stuck. He performed with the lute he’d won off some other traveler in a gambling game his mother would scold him for, and he told the crowd to call him Jaskier.

And, amongst insults and other jeers, they had.

“Jaskier, what are you doing here?”

Catherine says his name in that gentle way he likes, like she was sent to assure him that it fits him, after all. 

“Running away. Eloping. I’ve gotten quite good at that,” he says. “Oh, the running away part, that is. This will be my first time eloping.”

“Eloping?” Catherine asks, big eyes suddenly bigger. “What are you talking about?”

There’s no time for this. 

“You did,” he says as he steps past her and to the horse already saddled and packed behind her. It eases a bit of that tension coiled tightly in his chest, the sight of Catherine’s preparation. It’s easy to love her when she thinks of things like this, when she offers a way out without his asking. “Last night, right? You said you’d always dreamed of running off on some grand adventure with a handsome stranger.”

They’ve perhaps only a few moments more before Catherine’s husband comes with swords and guards and a demand for blood on his blade. 

“So,” he asks, turning back to Catherine with a cheeky grin, “are you going to need help up?”

“Jaskier,” Catherine says as he pats at his pockets, feeling for the few coins he’d gained from playing at the tavern earlier today. Enough to buy them a meal at the next town, he thinks with a gentle smile. 

“Your husband’s coming from the south side of town, so if we sneak past the homes just behind these stables, we should have enough of a headstart to make it to the main road before he catches on,” he says. He helpfully leaves out the part where the shopkeeper he’d passed on the way here had most definitely seen him, calling after him and asking if the rumors about his seducing Catherine were true. If she spots Catherine’s husband and decides to tell him, then that cuts their chances in half. Which is why… “Come on, Cat, we haven’t got much time.”

He turns around as shouts grow closer, people yelling “he went that way” but not seeming to agree on which way is right. He curses under his breath, turning back towards Catherine with his heart fluttering with all the weakness of a bird whose wings have just begun to feel strong enough to fly.

If they run now, they can make it. They can run to the next town and the next, changing their names and their lives like he’s become so good at doing. He’ll play at taverns and collect enough coin for them to keep moving. Traveling together with this story behind them, two fools in love with hearts bigger than the worlds they’ve been placed in. He’ll write a thousand songs for them, a thousand epics and stories and tales to share in each place they leave. 

If they run now, everything— the loneliness, the fear, the uncertainty in every second up until Catherine’s first forbidden kiss— will have been worth it.

But only if they go now.

“Come  _ on _ ,” he says, reaching for Catherine’s arm. Why has she gone so still? So cold in her gaze, so stern around those lips? The Catherine he knows is a stream caught in skin and bones, always moving with the knowledge that moving makes history. She’s the blue of the sky in the reflection, the silver of fish too quick to catch. She’s the definition of always running, always moving. And, so, he doesn’t hesitate to smile and nod towards the door. “We don’t have time, love, we need to go before they come. If they catch us, we’re dead, and then what good would eloping be if one of us—”

“Jaskier. Stop.”

And— Jaskier stops.

The night grows thick and still; it seems to know something he doesn’t.

Catherine continues watching Jaskier but not as if she knows him. Not as if she knows anything more than his new name and the way he looks when he’s undressed.

“What?” 

Catherine’s arm moves free from his hand. She steps to the side.

“I wasn’t waiting here for you.”

Jaskier doesn’t move despite the force of the words. He doesn’t breathe or think or blink. For a terrible moment, it’s as if he doesn’t even dare to exist.

Some familiar cruel voice twists beneath his skin and ribs, prodding at his heart with a sharp stick. 

_ See what happens when you try to do things on your own? _

“I don’t understand,” he says, the words as thick as fog on his tongue. Time is running out but Jaskier is still. He’s cold, only Catherine’s eyes drawing heat upon him.

“You were fun, Jaskier, but it wasn’t love. You should have realized that,” she says. “There’s a boy who works in the stables here who promised to take me away. My husband found our letters and I knew he’d kill him if he found who had written them. But if it was a traveler like you… If it was a man here for a week and gone the next, then what would be the point? I’m sorry you’ve gotten caught up in it but you must understand, a romantic like you.”

A trick. A pawn. A mask for some other man to wear.

Jaskier opens his mouth to speak but some unnamed emotion presses over him, dragging his lips shut once more lest he screams or shouts or cries. 

Outside, those voices grow closer.

“I’ll pay the innkeeper to distract my husband, as an apology from me to you for all this,” Catherine says, nodding to herself. “If you run now, you can still make it to the road before he realizes you’ve gone.”

Jaskier’s silent. He’s silent as Catherine leans in, kissing his cheek and then walking away. He’s silent as the men who wish him dead are drawn in a different direction. He’s silent as his throat tightens up, as his cheeks burn, as his eyes begin to sting.

Even when he shoves away from where he’s fallen to lean against the wall— even as he begins to run— his entire being is so dangerously silent. 

Without so much as a breath to prove he was ever there, Jaskier turns his back on the cruelty of the town. 

He prays to every name he knows that, for once, the cruelty will stay behind him.

V.

This isn’t something he’d call homesickness. The sinking of his heart into the tavern floor— his sweaty palms and wavering smile— couldn’t possibly be the result of another month away from home, another day without a name that fully sticks. No, it couldn’t be. Because, damn it, his name is  _ right,  _ no matter how many people refuse to call him by it.

“Idiot, just sit down,” someone snaps as he strums another chord, as he begins another song.

“No one wants a fool’s performance right now,” another follows with a laugh, half-heartedly chucking a roll of bread his way.

Idiot. Fool. 

Jaskier bites his tongue and ignores them, his smart remarks pressed to the back of his throat to make room for the song he’s been trying to sing. 

This isn’t homesickness, he thinks, as the crowd eventually grows bored of taunting, turning to one another to better ignore the wannabe bard in the corner. There’s no part of him that could miss the disappointment in his father’s eyes or the judgment in his mother’s. No piece of him— no fragment— could ever wish to be back in that cold home, that place that named him Julian then tried to dictate what Julian should be. He can’t miss that.

But—

But perhaps he misses wearing a name and not knowing there’s another that might fit. Perhaps he misses brief moments— flashes, like petals in a storm— of joy, of smiling in banquets and dances, of entertaining guests with songs his parents scoffed at. 

Perhaps he misses having someone, anyone, looking at him like they see him.

But Jaskier doesn’t get homesick; he wouldn’t be Jaskier if he did.

Perhaps, then, he can call this what it is. Loneliness.

A loneliness like vines around his ribs, tugging and reshaping because maybe everyone else just wants him to be a little bit different. And, gods, those vines ache something fierce as he breathes in, as his song stops, as no one seems to care that he’s putting his lute away and biting his lip so harshly it may burst. 

He wonders, just briefly, what would happen if he were to introduce himself as Julian in the next town. He’s nearly done it before, the letters pressed to his teeth like they’ve been carved in; maybe they have. Maybe that’s why the world sees Jaskier and turns away. Maybe he’s not so good at hiding the person he tucked away.

He moves back to the table he’d placed the rest of his things at, close enough to make sure no one tried to steal the small bag of money and clothes. He has more in his room in the inn but this is the bag he took from home when he ran. Worn leather and scratches from the trees he passed— he knows it like a friend who’s watched his every move. His fingers brush over the strap, soaking in the memories ingrained there. Something that knew him as Julian; something trying to help him become Jaskier.

He’s somewhere in the middle now. The vines in his ribcage shift but, somehow, something lovelier tells him it’s alright. 

Something bright and vivid and gentle in his mind. Petals plucked from his thoughts and buried in his brain. They whisper that he’s okay.

As he slings the bag back over his shoulder, he fears he’ll break under the pressure he’s packed into it. The certainty that he can be someone else tied up with the dreadful hope he’s right. It’s like those first few nights after he ran away, waking to darkness and calling for a candle. Opening his eyes and remembering no one here will recognize his voice.

Not much has changed since then. 

It’s worse on days like this, though. Days where he sees the people in the world around him; days where he knows how few of them see him in return. He’ll sit near the streets with his lute balanced on his knee, his mouth dry and fingers stiff as the sun beats down upon him. And people pass and people look but they don’t stop. They don’t smile. They don’t do much more than furrow their brows and carry on their way. And Jaskier will sit there, playing songs until he’s forgotten which ones he’s already performed for that day. 

His dreams are much the same. 

Sometimes, he misses the sounds of his home. Of wandering the streets and plucking from fruit carts, his name shouted after him as he ran down the streets with a wild laugh. Dirt would collect under his nails when he’d inevitably trip and he hated that then. Now, though, he’d give anything for the feeling if only because it’d be dirt from a place he once called home— a place that once claimed him as its own. 

This place smells like dust and rotten fruit. Every place now seems to smell like nothing but dust and rotten fruit. Sometimes of sweat and animals in stables, of perfume clinging to his clothes because nights are lonely and he is weak. 

Jaskier presses his fingertips to his doublet as he leaves, not daring to hope the stench of these things isn’t coming from him. 

The street’s an old acquaintance beneath him. It’s a comfort and a curse. A curse because he knows, now, how the road feels when he’s walking away from another town, how it carries him until he can carry on no longer. A comfort, though, because he’s as uncertain about the way forward as he is the way back. He’s long forgotten what time it is back in that place he called home.

Still, he stops. He stares at the dust on his shoes.

Is his room the same, he wonders? Have they sold the shirts and hats he liked so much? Did they destroy it? Come up with some story as to why their wandering boy has wandered so far?

The world is so much bigger than his bedroom ever was. He can’t recall, now, how he ever felt small in that space. 

But now it’s nearly dusk and these thoughts are nothing more than words for a song he’ll maybe write. Not a song he’ll write now, though. Not a song he’ll write soon.

Children run past, flowers in their hands as some old woman yells down the road at them for playing in her garden. 

Jaskier imagines running with them, to the place where the sun begins to set. 

He doesn’t call this homesickness but only because he knows he hasn’t found his home yet.

(+1)

Jaskier’s tuning his lute on the bed, the room smaller than they’ve had from past inns but still cozy and with a small window across from the door. It’s only been about an hour since Geralt left him here in order to search for another contract. Likely, he won’t be back before dark, despite his implication that he’d return in time for dinner. Jaskier’s made it a bit of a game these days, to guess at which contracts Geralt will come back and discuss versus which ones he’ll run off towards without warning the bard left in his room.

It’s… strange. The latter situations have grown few and far between. And, the former?

Well. Jaskier’s not as good at guessing as he used to be, he supposes.

Either way, he’s been traveling with the Witcher long enough at this point to know not to take offense at being left behind, those few times it happens. It’s for his safety or his well-being, and he appreciates that thought more than he resents it— if he can resent it, at all. That’s not to say some selfish part doesn’t want to tag along at any chance, though. Some part that picks up his lute and runs after Geralt the moment he sees him heading down the street, some part of him that somehow knows Geralt doesn’t seem to mean it when he tells Jaskier to stay behind.

The door opens. Geralt stands in the doorway, a sword already pulled free from his back.

Jaskier raises an eyebrow. “Got a contract, then, I take it? Or was the service really just that bad?”

“A wraith,” Geralt says, as verbose as ever. “Maybe two. They think it’s just outside the forest.”

“Wraiths,” Jaskier says, another eyebrow raised and his fingers already loosening from around the lute. “Sounds song-worthy.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Yeah, but that’s why I have you around. Can’t go off on my songwriting adventures without a proper bodyguard, after all,” Jaskier says, his mouth curving up into some checkmark smile at Geralt’s responding grunt. “Really, Geralt, do you imagine I’d just go wandering into the dangerous parts? Have I ever died on one of our quests before? Do you really have that little faith in me?”

Geralt doesn’t answer, walking past Jaskier to grab his bag from the side of the bed. Jaskier sighs, leaning back on his hands and watching Geralt as he checks through his belongings. Gods, but it’ll be boring in this room. He supposes he could go down and serenade the patrons again, but it’s less fun without his muse in the room with him, standing in the corner and adding a visual to his descriptions. And, really, the ale here is far from his favorite. He’ll take getting strung up by a wraith any day over drinking another drop of that.

Geralt’s walking back to the door as Jaskier mentally goes over the songs the people seem to like best. Toss A Coin, of course, but perhaps he can sneak that new one in, see how they like his latest ballad about a vampire hunt. He’d gotten the details from behind a tree as Geralt fought, so it’s not the most accurate— though, it’s not ever the accuracy that makes it fun. 

“Jask?” Geralt asks in a manner that implies it’s not the first time saying it.

Jaskier looks over. “Yes?”

“Come on. We’ll need to leave now if you want to be back in time for a bath.”

“Oh,” Jaskier breathes, that same breath bubbling over into a laugh. “Right, yes, of course. Just let me set my lute down and I’ll be right on my way. Unless you think I should bring it? I could bring it and lure the wraiths out, or—”

“Jaskier. Shut up,” Geralt says. Still, he waits by the door.

Something warm buds deep within Jaskier’s chest.

“You won’t let them kill me, right?” He asks, following Geralt out the door once he’s properly slung the lute over his shoulder, his joke just barely covering the glee and excitement and childlike joy at being included. He’s almost embarrassed by the heat crawling up his neck at the simple words Geralt had spilled—  _ come on _ . As simple as that. As obvious. As if it were never a question that Jaskier would be coming along.

Geralt glances back at him, something in that look almost saying that he hears every tone Jaskier’s trying to hide.

“We’ll see.”

It seems only natural for Jaskier to catch up until he’s walking side by side with his Witcher, hands swinging freely beside him as they walk into the early evening air. Jaskier smiles, breathing in the dust and sweat and distinct scent that’s Geralt— because, no matter what he says, it’s not something as simple as onion sticking to him. It’s the adventure Jaskier was promised; it’s the fairy tale feeling of someone believing he belongs.

Jaskier’s heart rate picks up and he chances another quick peek at Geralt. Can he hear the sudden increase in his pulse? Can he sense the stupid overwhelming happiness Jaskier feels at having something as precious as a  _ friend _ ?

It doesn’t matter because Geralt simply nods forward, gesturing towards the direction they need to travel. 

“You know, so long as no monsters kill me, I think I can get used to this,” Jaskier says. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you tried telling me but this sort of traveling is rather nice.”

Geralt makes some noise of affirmation but Jaskier knows he doesn’t fully understand, not yet. He doesn’t believe that Jaskier could prefer all this walking and running and fearing for his life, but it seems to be all Jaskier’s ever done. Ever since Julian faded— properly, in some tavern some years back, where listeners actually applauded his songs, where his singing gained him coin and smiles and pretty people in his bed— Jaskier’s only focused on walking from one place to another. He’s learned to run towards what brings him joy and damn the consequences. He’s learned to fear losing the life he’s made, the life of Jaskier the Bard.

One day, Geralt will understand this. One day, they’ll share their stories and their lives and everything will be as it should. 

For now, though, Jaskier focuses only on the adventures he’s yet to have with his friend.

“You see that mountain over there in the distance?” He asks after just a minute has passed, narrowing his eyes at the setting sun. “You ever try hunting up that thing? I’m sure there are loads of monsters waiting to be slain. I say we head that way after you get these wraith things out of the way. And mountains are much more romantic settings for songs, we really must stop hunting in towns. You know how many exciting words rhyme with town? Well, you do frown quite a bit so that helps but, really. It’s a waste.”

Geralt’s next breath could be laughter or a sigh. Either way, it’s far from the exasperated annoyance Jaskier typically receives for his rambling.

“I’ve not been up there yet,” Geralt says. “But I’m sure the time will come.”

“Well,” Jaskier says, smiling, “just be sure you take me with you.”

Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, perhaps it’s nothing but a foolhardy hope, but Jaskier swears Geralt nearly smiles back.

Before them, the mountain looms, and Jaskier grins into its setting sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's 5:30 am and I'm hearing things and rambling on my snapchat story. Please leave a comment and let me know if the all nighter I spent writing this was worth it!


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